Die-hards get an early start at Old State Capitol

As of 9:30 p.m., only two people, Chris Trudeau, 25, and his girlfriend Becky Van Dyke, 21, were in line at Seventh and Washington streets for Saturday's big event.

John Reynolds

As of 9:30 p.m., only two people, Chris Trudeau, 25, and his girlfriend Becky Van Dyke, 21, were in line at Seventh and Washington streets.

The two Springfield residents and supporters of Barack Obama were preparing for a night of waiting for the arrival of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

They were wearing Obama T-shirts and had a copy of Obama’s book, "The Audacity of Hope." They hope to get close enough to ask for an autograph.

“It’s such a historic moment,” Trudeau said. “We just saw 200,000 people in Berlin who came and lined up and last year, 17,000 people came to Springfield. We are real excited because it’s another big, historic event.”

Both said they were surprised they were the first ones in line. They didn’t have many supplies with them and said they probably would spend the night reading Obama’s book.

“We thought there would be a lot more people camped out,” Van Dyke said. “We made sure we got here early enough.”

Van Dyke said she isn’t the type of person to spend all night in a line, but Trudeau admitted that he twice camped out for the iPhone.

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